


Locked On

by sw33n3y



Category: The Professionals
Genre: Christmas, Fanart, Ficlet, M/M, h/c, manips
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-22
Updated: 2015-12-22
Packaged: 2018-05-08 07:35:56
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,147
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5488979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sw33n3y/pseuds/sw33n3y
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Doyle sharpens his aim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Locked On

[ **Full size** ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/sw33n3y/20976085/92933/92933_original.jpg)

  
  


[ **Full size** ](http://ic.pics.livejournal.com/sw33n3y/20976085/93629/93629_original.jpg)

  
  
Doyle winced as he struggled with his coat, the prickle and tug of surgical thread reminding him to take it easy. Blue serge, thick and firmly buttoned, he was going to need it. Outside, the mercury had plummeted.  
  
‘Alright then?’ ventured Bodie, barely audible.  
  
_Damn him! Where was the carefully measured jibe when he needed it most?_ ‘Yeah, no thanks to the hospital grub. ..Christmas miracle that is.’ Doyle was determined to sail above the gravity of the week’s events, on the surface at least.  
  
Bodie nodded mildly and forced an unconvincing smile.  
  
So there he was, Agent Three-Seven: arch clown and master of diversionary tactics, finally lost for words, his defences completely down.  
  
Doyle knew Bodie and his survival strategies. He’d learned to expect the enthusiastic tirade over last second changes to op plans or concern, thinly disguised as a heated performance critique, but not this.  
  
Doing the only thing that seemed reasonable under the circumstances, the two busied themselves gathering his belongings and tending to release details, in an attempt to avoid further awkwardness.  
  
Five more minutes and he’d be out of there, Doyle reminded himself, escaping the overpowering presence of antiseptic, starch and Nurse Evelyn O’Brien whose mercies were not especially tender. But the more he tried to shrug it off, the more the reality settled on him. This one had been too close.  
  
Misplaced loyalties and deep pockets would be his undoing, he thought. It was difficult, at the best of times, to stay ahead of the shadier local enterprises. This lot however, took the cake: armed to the teeth, set on an agenda and more than happy to argue the point with a hail of lead.  
  
Then there was Macaulay - not a spot on _his_ Jimmy Shands. He’d be rubbing shoulders with all the right people, drink in hand and smiling for photos on the minister’s lawn, while back in the docklands his goons were picking off the opposition, one by one.  
  
Doyle’s number wasn’t up that day, but it could be, tomorrow. That’d be the end of those vague tea break musings about where he might be several years down the track and the sort of pursuits he could fritter his pension away on.  
  
After a last scan of the room he tilted his head towards the door and they moved off.  
  
A few steps past the nurses’ station and his thoughts turned inward again. So what was this whole episode anyway, _‘The Ghost of Christmas Yet to bleedin’ Come’, here to scupper his plans for a night off?_ Doyle gave an involuntary shudder as he brushed the demon from his shoulder. _Banish that toothless sod back to the yellowed pages it came from._ He was half way through the thought when he suddenly felt the urge to check around him. ..No Dickensian vignette, linoleum and plaster up to each gloriously featureless corner. His relief was palpable.  
  
Bodie, immediately picked up on the distraction and gave in to his curiosity  
  
‘Something there?’  
  
Doyle recovered quickly. ‘Just checking me colours aren’t fading’ he mumbled out one side of his mouth.  
  
The response was irritatingly abstract, designed to keep his partner at arm’s length. He wasn’t going to get into any of this with Bodie until he had taken it all in, himself. His mind drifted back to the fray. 

\------------------------------------------------------------------

He crouched with his Walther ready as the armoury blazed, the air around him alive with flying chunks of masonry. It was starting to feel like a one-way assault. He could make out Bodie’s silhouette in the distance. He was already engaged, and returning fire, but where was the backup!  
  
Taking his chance, Doyle made it across some open ground, throwing himself behind a wall. His breath came hard as he fumbled for another clip, unaware that he was being observed.  
  
Clearly outnumbered, it felt like they’d been set up. Nothing to do, once the ammo ran out, but wait. He was shocked to realize then that he had resigned himself to ..the end. And worse, he’d bought into the sick irony of trying to protect Bodie by shutting him out, only to find they would now die apart. Was any of this actually worth it he wondered, snapping his last magazine into place?  
  
It would have been too easy - falling into cynicism amidst the dust and confusion, but as he scrambled to rein back his thoughts, a Two-Ten round tore through the last of his indecision. In that split-second life’s uncertainties were rendered void.  


\--------------------------------------------------------------------

Out in the hallway, they found themselves alone together for the first time in days. The sudden absence of rattling trolleys and busy staff, served to magnify their awareness of each other: shoes padding softly over the polished floor, creaking leather; radiating body warmth. An accidental brush of hands. The heat rising. Their gaze slipped sideways momentarily, trembling lashes the only giveaway.  
  
Doyle’s sniper could not have known the full effect of his actions while he tracked his target, the cosmic reach of his finger on the trigger as he fixed Four-Five in his sights and fired. The impact propelled him, headlong, into a new space where a single person came into view.  
  
It was as the fog of anaesthesia lifted, that Doyle had his epiphany. Blinking drowsily into the light, he felt something had changed. He’d come back to the world with a revised set of priorities and the questions that had been in his mind for so long, now ceased to exist. The answer was here, right beside him - this living, breathing reason to get up every morning...He had to tell him!  
  
Things had gotten clearer on the other side of the lens. He’d seen, they had _both_ seen their focus shift to a new place where all obstacles were removed.  
  
The pace of their steps became more purposeful now. Doyle felt sure that Bodie was quietly arriving at the same conclusion he had, a minute earlier. He turned up his collar and braced for the biting chill of winter against his skin, finally prepared to bare his soul.  
  
As they stepped into the evening air, a flurry of soft white flecks danced about - a filmy Inner-London halo that framed them as they walked. Doyle thought he heard voices echoing faintly – carollers perhaps?  
  
The throaty burble of a baritone sax hovered somewhere in the distance. He turned slightly and met a pair of velvet dark eyes. The faraway twang of a guitar distracted them but, too late, he’d been caught. Bodie paused, watching the downy crystals catch on Doyle’s hair and lashes, then shrugged and conceded with a gentle smirk ‘sometimes you’ve just gotta get in the snow and play’.  
  
Despite everything, Doyle felt the corners of his mouth start to curl.  
  
Time to steal away from thin walls and critical eyes, to a place where the healing could begin.

 

oooOOOooo

**Author's Note:**

> Notes:
> 
> And the music that Bodie and Doyle hear in the final moments of the scene? - ‘Baby Jesus Was the First Glam Rocker’ by The Glam Chops. Follow the link if you’d like to [**listen**](https://youtu.be/oHqMnzzeBJg)
> 
> The music track is not from that era, but was chosen for its references to the style of some music that was in personal collections around the time.
> 
> A big thank you to Draycevixen for her introduction to the band, which then led me to this song.
> 
> Trailer:  
> Author: sw33n3y  
> Title: Locked On  
> Category: Slash  
> Archive at Proslib/Circuit: Yes please  
> Disclaimer: I do not own the show, characters or music, just borrowing them.


End file.
